Central banks announced on Thursday that the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of France will test the first cross-border payments in digital currency. An initiative that will be a first for two of the world's major currencies. Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse and the French company Natixis are participating in the project, as well as the Swiss stock exchange operator SIX Digital Exchange, the fintech company R3 and the innovation centre of the Bank for International Settlements. The experiment will focus on the market for "wholesale" loans between banks rather than on day-to-day public transactions, but this will be the first time that a digital euro and Swiss franc will be fully tested.

"The Bank of France is convinced of the potential benefits of wholesale central bank digital currency to provide maximum security and efficiency in financial transactions," said Sylvie Goulard, Deputy Governor of the Bank of France. The collaboration between the two central banks was named Jura, after the mountain range that separates Switzerland and France. Thanks to this technology, payments will be almost instantaneous, but both central banks will have to approve them digitally before they can be made.